The very first question that Seattle voters will see on the ballot this fall will be asking them whether or not they want to change plurality voting, the primary voting process. The second most popularly used voting system in the world, the simplicity, and straightforwardness of plurality voting have endeared it to many. However, most people mightn’t be sad to see this voting system go as it has repeatedly shown that it’s not only incapable of fully capturing the people’s true intent but it can also significantly contribute to stunted growth in certain regions. Now, if plurality voting is on its way out, two voting systems that have the potential to fill the gap it’ll leave behind are ranked choice voting and approval voting. And of these two options, the latter is arguably more apt for the needs of a truly democratic people. Here’s why.

For clarity, as a way of electing leaders to public office, ranked-choice voting or RCV is no doubt heads and shoulders above plurality voting. This is because it efficiently manages to compensate for the needs of a single-winner system in a way that plurality voting can’t possibly achieve. However, the drawbacks of electing the future leadership of the city of Seattle using this voting system are simply too great.

To start with, RCV is simply just too complicated. The way the voting system operates actively demands that voters know everything about all the candidates contesting for a particular office. While this sounds simple in theory, the bitter truth is that it is an unrealistic expectation. It’s been statistically proven that even card-carrying members don’t always know the name of all the candidates from their party. What’s more, even if people took the time to study each candidate and then rank their choices as this system requires, there’s still the possibility of your vote getting “exhausted”. An exhausted vote refers to cases where all the candidates that a voter ranks gets eliminated. The direct implication of this is that, with RCV, there’s always the real potential that your voice should be effectively suppressed. The way it does it is different, but the argument can be made that, ultimately, just like with plurality voting, RCV still has a long way to go when it comes to expressing the true intentions of a voter. And that’s what makes approval voting so great.

In essence, approval voting captures all the positive aspects of plurality voting and ranked-choice voting while filtering out most of the cons of these other systems.

It just might be Seattle’s best hope because this single-winner voting system efficiently accounts for all the intricacies that go into the act of voting without getting too complicated. It simply asks that you vote for as many candidates as you want. The candidate who gets the most votes is declared the winner.

Now, because approval voting dispenses with the need to rank or categorize your choices, it allows you to be more candid with yourself as you cast your vote. Also, you get the opportunity to vote for that lesser-known candidate you’re interested in, plus your top favorite in a way that one doesn’t actively antagonize the other. The level of honesty that this voting system brings to the table shouldn’t be easily disregarded.

Approval voting also performs well on the logistics side of things too as it’s remarkably cost-effective to implement. What this translates to is that as the current voting machines and tabulation software can be upgraded to work with approval voting at negligible costs, taxpayers won’t need to spend much to put this system in action.

But perhaps the greatest strength of this voting system is that it doesn’t inhibit expression, it fosters inclusion and offers the best platform for the true will of the people to play out in its entirety. The fact that it also eliminates the problem of spoilers and vote splitting to a greater extent is also quite commendable.

Now, Dr. Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel Prize, is an esteemed economist, was able to conclusively prove that no voting system in existence is completely free of imperfections. This is to say that even approval voting has its limitations, the most important of which is that some voters may not be able to truly set an approval threshold.

But even with this, the merits of this voting system still greatly outweigh any perceived demerits. The fact that it allows voters to eloquently express themselves makes it the only true viable replacement for plurality voting short and long-term.

So, if the era of plurality voting must end in Seattle, it’s not enough to just replace it randomly. Seattleites have to make sure they get it right this time; the integrity of democracy depends on that.

Because of this, approval voting remains the best way to go!